Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Victor Arano

Braves Claim Victor Arano, Kyle Garlick

By | at

The Braves have claimed right-hander Victor Arano and outfielder Kyle Garlick off waivers, the Phillies announced.  Philadelphia recently designated both players for assignment.  The claims fill the final two open spots on Atlanta’s 40-man roster.

A member of the Phillies organization since August 2014, Arano has a 2.65 ERA, 26.3 K%, and 18.8 K-BB% over 74 2/3 career innings in the big leagues, all from 2017-19 (and mostly in 2018, when Arano tossed 59 1/3 frames).  Unfortunately, elbow surgery sidelined Arano for much of 2019 and kept him from making any MLB appearances in 2020.  If healthy, Arano could certainly be an interesting weapon for the Atlanta bullpen, as he has shown an ability to miss a lot of bats both in the majors and in the minors.

The right-handed hitting Garlick also gives the Braves another option as they figure out their outfield situation.  With no sign that a reunion with Marcell Ozuna is forthcoming, the Braves have Ronald Acuna as a lock for one starting position in either center field or right field, and then a combination of Ender Inciarte, top prospects Cristian Pache and Drew Waters, and bench candidates Abraham Almonte and Johan Camargo all in the mix for outfield duty.  Garlick could conceivably share platoon duty with Inciarte (a left-handed hitter) or switch-hitters Almonte and Camargo, or Atlanta could just stash him in the minors as depth.

Garlick (who turns 29 later this week) has appeared in each of the last two MLB seasons, amassing a .214/.276/.414 slash line over 76 total plate appearances with the Dodgers and Phillies.  Originally a 28th-round pick for the Dodgers in the 2015 draft, Garlick hit a very impressive .288/.345/.536 over 1846 PA in the Los Angeles farm system, though with the caveat that he was mostly playing against younger competition and that the Pacific Coast League is very hitter-friendly.

Red Sox Trade C.J. Chatham To Phillies

By | at

The Phillies have acquired minor league infielder C.J. Chatham from the Red Sox in exchange for a player to be named later, per announcements from both teams. Right-hander Victor Arano has been designated for assignment in order to clear a roster spot, the Phillies added. MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo reported (via Twitter) that Chatham was likely headed to Philadelphia just prior to the announcement.

Chatham, 26, was the Red Sox’ second-round pick back in 2016, during Dave Dombrowski’s time as the team’s president of baseball operations. It seems as though Dombrowski, now heading up the Phillies’ baseball ops department, is still a firm believer in Chatham’s skill set. Chatham has yet to make his big league debut but spent the 2020 season at Boston’s alternate training site, where he continued to build on a solid 2019 showing in the upper minors. In 467 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A that year, Chatham hit .298/.333/.408 while logging time at both middle infield positions.

Both Baseball America and MLB.com ranked Chatham 14th among Boston farmhands this past summer. BA tabs him as at least a bench piece in the Majors and perhaps even a passable regular option at second base. Chatham has fanned in just 18.2 percent of his minor league plate appearances and has an all-fields, contact-oriented approach at the plate due to a lack of power, per those scouting reports. He’s a versatile defender who could handle any infield spot, and Chatham still has a pair of minor league options remaining, which gives the Phils some flexible depth for the next couple of seasons.

From Boston’s vantage point, a roster spot was needed to make Martin Perez’s new one-year deal with the team official. The Sox have yet to announce the Perez signing, but that’ll happen once he passes a physical.

As for the 25-year-old Arano (26 next month), he spent the 2020 season in the Phillies’ 60-man player pool but didn’t make it to the Majors. Arano was limited to just three appearances in 2019 due to elbow surgery, and he missed a chunk of the 2018 campaign due to shoulder issues — rotator cuff inflammation, more specifically. He made his big league debut back in 2017 but has still managed to tally just 74 1/3 frames, in large part because of injury.

Of course, Arano has also been impressive when he’s been healthy enough to take the hill. In those 74 2/3 innings, he boasts a 2.65 ERA and 3.38 SIERA. He’s also punched out 26.3 percent of the hitters he’s faced and walked a very manageable 7.6 percent of opponents. Arano is a fly-ball pitcher with average fastball velocity (93.6 mph) who leans heavily on his slider that has helped him to post an impressive 16.6 percent swinging-strike rate in his young career. The Phils have a week to trade Arano, release him or place him on outright waivers.

Phillies Release Logan Forsythe, Francisco Liriano; Neil Walker To Make Opening Day Roster

By | at

The Phillies announced a series of roster moves, including the news that left-hander Francisco Liriano and infielder Logan Forsythe have been granted releases.  Infielder Neil Walker, meanwhile, has been told he will be on Philadelphia’s Opening Day roster, so the team will be officially selecting his minor league contract at some point between now and the first game.  In other moves, catcher Henri Lartigue has been removed from the Summer Camp player pool and righty Victor Arano was optioned to Triple-A.

Liriano and Forsythe both had opt-out decisions coming this week, and it seems as if the club gave them an early start on the open market since neither were in the Phillies’ plans.  Walker, by contrast, also had an opt-out clause but will now receive the prorated sum of his original (non-specified) guarantee for making the big league team.

Forsythe and Walker were among several veteran infielders added by the Phillies this winter, as Josh Harrison, Ronald Torreyes, and Phil Gosselin were also signed to minor league deals.  The latter trio is still in camp, though it remains to be seen how many other roster spots will be available.  Scott Kingery is back after recovering from COVID-19 though it isn’t yet known if he’ll be ready for Opening Day, while star prospect Alec Bohm figures to arrive at some point in 2020, perhaps once service time considerations are no longer a factor.

Walker, 34, hit .261/.344/.395 with eight homers over 381 PA with Miami last season, delivering roughly league-average (98 OPS+, 99 wRC+) offensive production.  The switch-hitting Walker did much of his damage from the left side of the plate last season, as has been the norm for much of his career.

It seemed as if Forsythe was having a comeback season for the first two months of his tenure with the Rangers last season, but a hot start quickly turned, and the 33-year-old ended up with only a .227/.325/.353 slash line from 367 PA.  Forsythe will now look to catch on with his fifth different organization within the last two years.

There was some doubt as to whether or not Liriano would play at all during the 2020 season, as the southpaw reportedly considered sitting out due to COVID-19 concerns before eventually showing up at Philadelphia’s camp.  2019 saw Liriano work exclusively as a reliever for the first time in his long career, and he delivered a 3.47 ERA, 1.80 K/BB rate, 50.3% grounder rate, and 8.1 K/9 over 70 innings out of the Pirates’ bullpen.  As you would expect, Liriano performed better against left-handed batters (holding them to a .659 OPS) but also held righty swingers to a respectable .730 OPS.

Beyond these numbers, however, Liriano also allowed a lot of hard contract, so there is some uncertainty as to whether he’d be able to replicate his solid 2019 statistics again.  Given teams’ ever-present need for left-handed pitching, one would think Liriano will be able to find another minor league deal elsewhere.

Phillies Notes: Lineup, Hunter, Dominguez

By and | at

With the recent news that Andrew McCutchen will open the season on the IL, Phillies manager Joe Girardi will have to decide on what to do about the leadoff spot, as Todd Zolecki of MLB.com observes. Girardi mentioned Scott Kingery, Adam Haseley and Roman Quinn as options. But Girardi also “did not rule out” J.T. Realmuto, and he went on to note that he is taking the new three-batter minimum into consideration when thinking about lineup construction. “You want to bring in your lefty to face Bryce (Harper),” he says, “but I’m going to have him surrounded with my best two right-handers around him. So pick your poison.” Regardless of the solution, Girardi and Phillies fans will be hoping for McCutchen to return in short order and retake his position at the top of the lineup.

  • Per reports from Matt Gelb of The Athletic and Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports, expectations are that right-handed reliever Tommy Hunter will begin the season on the IL. The 33-year-old will be ready “a month or so into the season,” Salisbury adds. Hunter’s 2019 season was ended by elbow surgery in July. But that didn’t stop the Phillies from giving him an incentive-laden deal in February. Hunter was quite effective for the Phillies in 2018, providing 64 innings with an ERA of 3.80. However, he was limited to just 5 1/3 innings in 2019 before the aforementioned elbow issues. It remains to be seen which version the Phillies will get in 2020.
  • Like Hunter, righty Victor Arano also seems ticketed for the IL to open the year, according to Gelb. Arano appeared in just three of Philly’s games last season (all in April) before elbow surgery knocked his year off the rails and stopped him from building on a quality 2018. That season, Arano notched a 2.73 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 2.58 BB/9 over 59 1/3 frames.
  • With Hunter and Arano joining David Robertson on the IL, that could create high-leverage opportunities for other relievers, such as Seranthony Dominguez. However, it’s still not clear if he can avoid the IL himself. Salisbury notes that Dominguez himself “believes he will be ready for opening day, but officials will be cautious.” The reliever emerged as a weapon out of the Philly bullpen in 2018, putting together 58 innings of work with a 2.95 ERA, even compiling 16 saves in the process. The following year, however, saw that ERA balloon to 4.01 over 24 2/3 innings before a ligament strain in his right elbow finished his season on June 5th. The 25-year-old pitched in a simulated game on Sunday, with Girardi noting that his fastball got up to 94 mph. That’s still short of his normal average of 98 mph, according to StatCast. But Philly fans will surely take solace in the fact that he is seemingly healthy and still has some time to ramp up to full strength.

Victor Arano Out For 10 To 12 Weeks After Surgery

By | at

Phillies reliever Victor Arano may not be able to make it back this year, though the club isn’t yet ruling out that possibility. Skipper Gabe Kapler told reporters, including Matt Gelb of The Athletic (via Twitter), that Arano’s rehab will require a layoff of at least ten to twelve weeks after his recent elbow surgery.

That timeline leaves only the narrowest of openings for a 2019 return for the 24-year-old right-hander. The most optimistic scenario would see Arano cleared to pick up a baseball in mid-August. He’d still need to begin a throwing program and build up his arm strength thereafter, all without experiencing any setbacks.

Though the Phils can still hope for the best, they’ll ultimately need to approach the summer trade period on the assumption that Arano is not going to make it back this year. While it was known already that he’d miss some time, the extent of the damage wasn’t clear.

Arano may not be a household name, but he’s a quality reliever who delivered big value on a league-minimum salary. Through 74 2/3 MLB frames, he carries a 2.65 ERA with 9.6 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. He sits at a sturdy but unexceptional 94 mph but carries a smooth 16.6% swinging-strike rate owing to an excellent and oft-utilized slider.

Today’s news is only the latest blow to an increasingly battered and bruised Phillies bullpen. Rare is the contender that doesn’t consider mid-season relief upgrades, but this club seems in particular need of some pen acquisitions. It has been a middle-of-the-road unit to this point of the season, with a nice showing from Hector Neris in the closer’s role and mostly passable efforts otherwise, but there’s ample uncertainty with regard to some of the key veterans and more promising young arms.

Injuries Mounting In Phillies’ Bullpen

By | at

By most measures, the 2019 campaign has been a very good one for the Phillies so far. The team is out to a 33-22 start, giving them a 3.5-game lead over the Braves in the National League East. Neither their lineup nor their pitching staff has been dominant, but the Phils’ +35 run differential is easily the best in their division. They’ve been a solid team — albeit in a division that’s been less competitive than many pundits anticipated prior to the season thanks to an awful start by the Nationals and a lackluster start from the Mets.

But the Phillies also entered the final week of May with a long list of injuries in the bullpen, and it’s only gotten worse over the past 24 hours. Right-hander Victor Arano, who has been out since mid April due to inflammation in his right elbow, underwent arthroscopic surgery yesterday, as NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury tweeted. Meanwhile, the team announced that lefty Adam Morgan, who is in the midst of the best season of his career, has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a forearm strain.

There’s no clear timeline for the return of either hurler, though the Phillies should issue an update on Arano’s status in the near future. He’s not a household name by any means, but the 24-year-old has looked every bit the part of a big league reliever since breaking into the Majors in 2017. Through his first 74 2/3 innings, Arano owns a 2.65 ERA with 9.6 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. He’s allowed just seven homers in that time while posting gaudy swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates (16.6 percent and 36.1 percent, respectively).

Morgan, meanwhile, sports a 1.96 ERA through 18 1/3 innings in 2019. The 29-year-old former starter has an 18-to-5 K/BB ratio in that time and has held lefties to a .154/.313/.231 average while limiting righties to an even more putrid .114/.162/.301 slash.

That pair of injury updates comes in addition to ongoing absences for David Robertson (flexor strain), Pat Neshek (shoulder strain), Edubray Ramos (biceps tendinitis) and Tommy Hunter (flexor strain). Philadelphia has nearly an entire MLB-caliber bullpen on the injured list at present, and none of the bunch is even out on a minor league rehab assignment.

Unsurprisingly, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark tweets that the Phillies are likely to “aggressively” pursue bullpen upgrades following next week’s MLB draft. But while that might stoke some renewed speculation about a possible match with Craig Kimbrel, Stark also downplayed that possibility. Similarly, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki suggests that a match between the Phillies and Kimbrel is still unlikely if Kimbrel is hoping to secure a multi-year deal. By all accounts, that’s the free-agent closer’s goal once he’s shed the burden of draft-pick compensation, so it doesn’t seem wise to pencil Kimbrel into the back of Gabe Kapler’s bullpen anytime soon.

Early June will still be too soon for some clubs to determine whether they’re full-on sellers, but there will be several clubs that have already accepted that fate — many of whom have some intriguing bullpen options to market. The Giants (Will Smith, Sam Dyson, Tony Watson), Tigers (Shane Greene) and Blue Jays (old friend Ken Giles?) are among the likely sellers of some high-end bullpen options, and none from that bunch has any designs on contending in their respective divisions at this juncture of the season. Specific targets will likely emerge as the Phils (and other teams) shift their focus beyond the draft, but they stand out as an obvious candidate to be among the game’s early buyers this year.

Victor Arano Headed For Further Elbow Examination

By | at

Phillies reliever Victor Arano is scheduled to be examined next week by orthopedic surgeon Neal ElAttrache, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Arano has already missed a month of action since coming down with elbow inflammation.

It had seemed that the 24-year-old Arano would make it back onto the MLB roster in relatively short order but the problematic symptoms in the joint arose again. That led the team to schedule an appointment with ElAttrache, who is known best for his role as the Dodgers’ team physician as well as for the many Tommy John surgeries he has performed.

Skipper Gabe Kapler says the situation doesn’t “feel” like one in which a major surgery will be required. There’s obviously enough worry to order up a closer look, though the hope will be that a non-invasive treatment approach can solve the issues.

Arano seemed to be a core pen piece for the Phils after a quality showing last year in his first full season in the majors. He opened on optional assignment after a rough spring but earned his way quickly back to the majors — where he got swings and misses on one of every four pitches he threw (albeit in a sample of just 16 batters faced).

Even if the news is relatively good, it seems the Phillies will need to give Arano a while longer to heal. And there is one intriguing replacement option filtering back, Breen further reports.

Vince Velasquez is set for his first mound work since hitting the IL on the 11th of this month. It seems the expectation is that his forearm strain won’t prevent him from bouncing back rather quickly, meaning that the team could soon be presented with some decisions in its rotation.

If the Phils decide to stick with Cole Ervin or restore Nick Pivetta to his spot in the starting five, Velasquez will be without a role. He could drop down to Triple-A to remain stretched out or perhaps function as a potentially handy high-leverage long man. Understandably, it seems the club will wait to make its moves until it is forced to commit.

NL East Notes: Pivetta, Brinson, Jennings, Arano

By and | at

Phillies right-hander Nick Pivetta sat down with The Athletic’s Meghan Montemurro for a candid interview about the difficulty of being optioned to Triple-A and the path he knows he needs to take back to the Majors (subscription required). The 26-year-old expressed disappointment in what he felt was “an early send-down,” though he made clear he respects the decision and understands what he has to improve upon to return. The Phils made no promises about the length of his minor league stay, Montemurro notes, suggesting that Pivetta’s fate is largely in his own hands. Perhaps most interestingly, Pivetta spoke about the emotional conflict of being sent to the minors and having his job taken by close friend Jerad Eickhoff. “That’s the brutality of what is baseball,” Pivetta explained. “Your best friends and guys that have really helped you out, they come up and they take your jobs and you can’t feel hardship against those guys because they’re your friends. … The road he had to come back is extraordinary and it’s a feat and it’s a great thing for him. So I’m not ever going to feel down about that.” The interview serves as a good reminder of the oft-overlooked human component of roster transactions we see on a daily basis.

Here’s more from the NL East…

  • A demotion to Triple-A New Orleans could be looming for Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson if he’s not able to quickly right the ship at the plate, writes Joe Frisaro of MLB.com. The former top prospect struggled through much of the 2018 season but gave Marlins fans hope with a huge Spring Training performance. However, he’s now mired in a disastrous 1-for-27 tailspin over his past 11 games, having punched out 16 times in that span. Even more troubling, as Frisaro points out, is the fact that Brinson has just one hit against a breaking pitch all season.
  • The Nationals have assigned just-inked southpaw Dan Jennings to the club’s Double-A affiliate, Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post tweets. Heading to the penultimate stop of the minors doesn’t mean that the 32-year-old is far from the majors; to the contrary, it puts him much closer to Nationals Park — in Harrisburg, PA instead of the club’s Triple-A outpost in Fresno, CA. Jennings owns a 2.96 ERA over 344 career innings in the majors; given the present state of the Nats’ pen, he figures to be called up in fairly short order.
  • It still isn’t clear what’s going on in the inflamed elbow of Phillies righty Victor Arano. He’s due soon for an MRI, but first needs an ultrasound to assess what precise type of imaging to pursue, manager Gabe Kapler tells reporters including Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link). The 24-year-old Arano had been off to an interesting start to the season, racking up seven strikeouts against two walks in 4 2/3 innings with an eye-popping 25.0% swinging-strike rate. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but nevertheless a promising development for a young reliever who already showed ample promise last year. He and the Phillies will obviously hope that the elbow issue turns out to be minor.

Phillies Place Three On Injured List

By | at

The Phillies have placed shortstop Jean Segura, infielder/outfielder Scott Kingery and reliever Victor Arano on the 10-day injured list, Matt Breen of The Philadelphia Inquirer tweets. The team recalled right-hander Drew Anderson, left-hander Austin Davis and third baseman Mitch Walding from Triple-A Lehigh Valley in corresponding moves.

Segura’s IL placement, retroactive to Wednesday, comes as a result of a left hamstring strain. It’ll deprive the Phillies of one of their key offseason additions and someone who has gotten off to a terrific start this year. The 29-year-old’s slashing .328/.384/.476 (130 wRC+) in 73 plate appearances, continuing an impressive run of production that began with the Diamondbacks in 2016.

With Segura unavailable over the past couple days, the Phillies turned to the versatile Kingery at short. After a rough rookie season in 2018, Kingery, 24, opened this year with an exemplary line of .406/.457/.719 (208 wRC+) and two home runs in 35 PA. He’s also dealing with a strained hamstring, but on his right side, and an MRI showed it’s “mild,” per Breen.

The absences of Segura and Kingery will leave shortstop to journeyman Phil Gosselin, at least initially. The club also has the somewhat experienced duo of Andrew Romine and Gift Ngoepe as potential minor league call-ups, but it would need to add either to an already full 40-man roster.

The 24-year-old Arano is now the third Phillies reliever currently on the IL, joining David Robertson and Tommy Hunter. Arano’s battling elbow inflammation, no doubt an ominous-sounding problem for a pitcher. The righty was one of the Phillies’ most successful relievers last year, his rookie campaign, though a horrific spring forced him to begin this season in the minors. He then dominated Triple-A hitters over four innings, which led to a return to the majors April 12. Since then, Arano has combined for 4 2/3 frames in three appearances and allowed two earned runs, both in the Phils’ loss to the Rockies on Thursday, while notching seven strikeouts against two walks.

NL East Notes: Kintzler, Toussaint, Crawford, Arano

By | at

It seems as if some behind-the-scenes drama contributed to the Nationals’ decision to trade Brandon Kintzler to the Cubs, Fancred Sports’ Jon Heyman writes.  GM Mike Rizzo reportedly believed Kintzler was an unnamed source in two recent stories (by Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post) that detailed internal criticisms of the Nats’ clubhouse culture and Dave Martinez’s handling of pitchers.  Kintzler has vigorously denied these claims, saying as much to Rizzo personally.  Once word spread about the situation, Passan even contacted Cubs president of baseball ops Theo Epstein to state that he’d never been in contact with Kintzler and that the reliever wasn’t the one who provided the much-discussed quote about the Nationals’ clubhouse being “a mess.”  Furthermore, as Heyman notes, it seems odd that Rizzo would single Kintzler out for any role in Janes’ piece when several other Nats relievers were quoted by name.  Ken Rosenthal provided an alternate view on the Kintzler trade in a video for FOX Sports, saying that Washington’s primary reason for moving Kintzler may have been to escape his $5MM player option for the 2019 season.

Some more from the NL East…

  • The Braves plan to have right-hander Touki Toussaint make his Major League debut on Monday, manager Brian Snitker told Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Twitter link) and other reporters.  Toussaint would be making a spot start in one half of the Braves’ double-header against the Marlins.  Selected 16th overall by Arizona in the 2014 draft, Toussaint and Bronson Arroyo were dealt to the Braves in June 2015, with Atlanta taking Arroyo’s contract off the Diamondbacks’ hands in order to obtain the young righty.  A few middling seasons dropped Toussaint’s prospect stock, though he has gotten back on track with a combined 2.68 ERA, 10.7 K/9, and 2.84 K/BB rate over 86 Double-A innings and 31.1 Triple-A innings in 2018.  Fangraphs ranked Toussaint 51st in its midseason top-100 prospects list, while MLB.com ranks the 22-year-old 76th among all minor leaguers.
  • “It’s hard to see where [J.P.] Crawford fits into the future plans” of the Phillies following what “looks more and more like a lost season” for the infielder, The Athletic’s Matt Gelb writes (subscription required).  Due to both a forearm strain and a fractured hand, Crawford has been limited to just 34 games this season, and has thus been relegated to pinch-hit and utilityman duty behind third baseman Maikel Franco and newly-acquired shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera.  Franco has revived his stock with the club with a bounce-back season, and while Cabrera is a free agent after the year, the Phils also have Scott Kingery signed to an extension and in need of a regular spot on the diamond given the Phillies’ crowded outfield and the presence of Cesar Hernandez at second base.  Plus, there are the ever-present rumors that Philadelphia will soon push to acquire a major position player like Manny Machado.  It’s worth noting that Crawford is still just 23 and has only 199 MLB plate appearances to his name, so it’s far too early to write off a player who has been a consensus top prospect for the last four years.  Still, the Phillies could now consider Crawford as a trade chip rather than a future cornerstone, though it would be something of a sell-low scenario given Crawford’s rough 2018 season.
  • On the other side of the young talent equation, Gelb also writes about Victor Arano’s journey from trade afterthought to a major part of the Phillies bullpen.  Arano came to the organization as a player to be named later in the Roberto Hernandez trade with the Dodgers in August 2014, and he posted some good strikeout totals but overall only decent numbers as a minor leaguer.  Philadelphia promoted Arano from Double-A to the big leagues last year, and the right-hander has blossomed, with a 1.95 ERA, 9.9 K/9, and a 3.59 K/BB rate over 55 1/3 career innings.
Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top